


that mighty arid song

by verulam (krynon)



Series: borderlands shortfic! [3]
Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: Deserts, Hypnotism, M/M, Mind Control, Surreal, Trans Siren Rhys, mythical creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:03:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krynon/pseuds/verulam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rhys is a Desert Siren, and Rhys feels the sand in his bones.</p>
<p>(Or: this desert-goer is different.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	that mighty arid song

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: potential surreality, mythical creatures, sirens, water
> 
> unbetaed drabble, so lmk if you spot anything off!

Rhys likes the warmth. It’s lucky, really, because Desert Sirens sort of  _had_  to. If they didn’t, they mostly left the deserts altogether and ran for the water-logged plains of the human-cities.

It’s not a problem for Rhys, though. There’s trees enough for him, and he has his own oasis to keep him grounded. He knows that  _that_  is lucky, too. Desert Sirens without oases found it nearly  _impossible_  to find people to…

To…

Well.

Rhys is still  _relatively_  new to this, but ‘eat’ feels like the right word, even though it isn’t. It’s not..  _eating,_  exactly. Rhys just… takes their voices, sees what they’re willing to give him in exchange for it’s return, and then usually just abandons them.  

If they offer to kiss him, and they nearly  _always do,_  then he’ll take  _just a little bit of them,_  and then let them go on their way.

Those ones always come back. They  _always_  come back, and they sit on the edge of his oasis with their toes touching the water and fail to understand exactly  _why_  they want to hear him speak.

Rhys, of course, knows perfectly well.

The dunes are such powerful things, and when Rhys sings he feels as though he  _is_  the sand. The sand and sun and the sky, every inch this powerful, mythical beast.

In all honesty, sometimes he forgets his sand-words, and sings gibberish instead. When Lilith hears him stumble from a hundred miles away, her answering call is mocking. The desert-goers don’t seem to mind though, so there’s that.

The desert-goers come from all walks of life. Some are adventurers, and come close willingly only to realise they can’t leave. Others are wanderers, sad souls with no other place to go. They come willingly too, but don’t seem to mind too much when offered a place in the oasis. The last group is the  _searchers,_  looking for something  _specific._ Sometimes it’s Rhys they’re searching for, sometimes it’s the oasis itself. Some end up leaving, having found what they’re looking for, having given their part and been given their fill.

Some leave, some don’t.

All of them want Rhys to stay with them.

***

The water is the key.

The water, even so far out here, even when Rhys has only ever seen water in oases and guarded viciously by other sirens, is the key to it all. The water is life, and the water has a spirit of its own that Rhys feels in his bones. It’s an odd thing, a swaying flow, an energy against the stifling aridity of the desert dunes.

So when a desert-goer drives a  _truck_  into  _his oasis_  and carries a tank with more water than Rhys has  _ever seen,_  he is understandably disgruntled.

Rhys perches on his dune and tries to let the sand flow through him and  _sing,_ but the monstrosity that the desert-goer is driving is so loud it can’t be heard.

When the desert-kept behind him stop their conversations and peer around, distracted from the oasis and confused by the noise, Rhys decides that that’s enough.

It’s not quite a shriek- that would kill his desert-kept, probably, and he doesn’t need that- but it  _is_  meant to hurt, and  _that_  breaks through the barrier of noise that the desert-goer has brought with them.

The only thing that breaks through the  _shrill-crack-power_  of Rhys’ song is the slosh of water against the side of the desert-goers tank.

The truck stops to an abrupt halt, and Rhys stands up and squares his shoulders. The desert-goer steps out, thick boots and masked face cutting a clear line atop the haze.

“What do you want, desert-goer?” There’s no attempt at seduction, because Rhys doesn’t want an entranced idiot driving back out across the desert only to find  _another_ siren’s oasis.

“…Huh. Didn’t think you’d look like that,”  Says the desert-goer. They’re wearing a bandana, tied around the bottom of their face and smirking obviously beneath it.

Oh. So a searcher, then, and apparently one looking for him specifically. He takes a step forward, and narrows his eyes when the searcher doesn’t step back.

“Why are you here?” Rhys glances at the water, then glances back to their face. He steps forward again, and tries not to let his confusion show when the searcher  _still_ doesn’t move.

“Name’s Jack. I’m a…  _businessman._ ” Jack stares down at him, seems to square his shoulders as if to appear taller- Rhys lets the sand push his feet up, makes them equal in height, smiles in a way he knows is savage and desert-born.

“‘Businessmen’ aren’t  _welcome_.” And they  _aren’t._  He’s seen what happens to Sirens without an oasis of their own, how they dry up and become the sand they were made from.

He’s seen water pumps and abandoned desert-kept.

“Oh, is that  _so?_ ” Jack-the-searcher says, and this time  _he_  steps forward into Rhys’ space. “Mm, see, Sirens aren’t welcome on  _my_  land either.”

“It  _isn’t_  your land.” Rhys raises his hands, presses them so near together that their chests touch and press up against one another. The force of the sand keeps them tight even when he feels Jack lean back slightly. “It is  _desert._ ”

Jack smiles a savage smile that would fit more on a bereft sirens face than on a desert-goer, so Rhys pulls down his mask and opens his mouth.

“It belongs,” Rhys says, murmuring and meeting his eyes and dragging sand up to himself, feeling the heat of the sun and the thoughts of his desert-kept, smiling and gazing soft-but-harsh. “To  _no-one.”_

And then Rhys sings.

(This desert-goer is the  _first_  desert-goer to kissRhys before Rhys can kiss  _him._ )

(This desert-goer is different, and Rhys is going to find out  _why._ )

**Author's Note:**

> find me at: verulamion.tumblr.com <3


End file.
